A wide variety of bound reading materials are currently used, be they hard cover books, paperback books or magazines. These reading materials are sometimes printed in small print which can strain a reader's eyes. Further, these reading materials are occasionally printed on paper having a highly reflective surface. It is not uncommon, therefore, for the pages of the reading material to reflect the incident light into the reader's eyes, causing a glare which makes the printed text difficult to read.
This glare causes undesirable eye strain and also lowers the contrast between the print and the paper, further making it more difficult to read the printed material. The glare problem becomes significant when the reading materials are taken outdoors, since the sun is a single point of illumination and the pages of the reading materials can reflect a significant amount of sunlight into the eyes of the reader.
There is thus a need for a means to control the reflection of incident light into the eyes of the reader on these types of printed materials.
When reading books outdoors, whether in the back yard, at the beach or in the park, the books tend to get dirty not only during transit but from exposure to the environment. Similar problems occur indoors, although to a lesser extent. Thus, a number of book jackets have been devised which typically comprise a sheet of paper which covers the exterior of the book, but which leaves the edges of the pages unprotected. These book jackets typically become worn, torn or discarded so that the book binding, cover and pages are soiled or damaged. There is thus a need for an improved book cover to address these problems.
When a large number of pages are tightly bound together by a binding, the binding tends to exert a force on the pages which urges them to turn of their own accord when the book is opened. Since it is difficult to read moving pages, the reader typically holds the book open to the page that is being read. Tightly bound pages also tend to form an arch which makes it difficult to read the text on the curved pages. To further reduce this self-paging tendency of the books, and to hold the pages flat for reading, it is not uncommon for the reader to bend the book backwards so as to break the binding of the book and thereby reduce the tendency of the pages to turn by themselves, and to arch. This practice is damaging to the book binding and reduces the value of the books. There is thus a need for an improved means of retaining a book open at a desired location without necessarily damaging the book binding.